


Frankenstein in Red

by Metronomeblue



Category: Dominion (TV)
Genre: Becca-centric, F/M, Gen, I have complicated feelings about becca, I wrote this at midnight it's probably crap, Kind of a character study, but not really
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-12
Updated: 2014-08-12
Packaged: 2018-02-12 20:36:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,296
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2123841
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Metronomeblue/pseuds/Metronomeblue
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A semi-character study on Becca and Science and survival.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Frankenstein in Red

In the end, it’s not all that unpredictable.

There is science, and there is sympathy, and Becca Thorn is both at war. Her actions probably shouldn’t have been the sharp shock they turned out to be, (after all, what is science but taking things apart?), but nevertheless it was a shock. The people are frantic, and Becca’s not certain which is the greater fright- her death, or Michael’s shame. It’s a bit like what would happen if an electric chair was upended over a lightning bolt, and neither could quite win out, so they both turned the opposite direction.

The people of Vega are being abandoned. Senator Thorn- dead, General Risen- gone, the young Mr. Whele- gone, Michael- disgraced and fled. Even the Archangel Corps (who will have to be disbanded, now that Michael’s been revealed to be exactly what he seemed to be), have lost two of their number. New Delphi, it seems, will be playing host to an influx of Vega’s citizens.

And meanwhile, Vega panics. Becca read a book once, about a scientist- so clever, so cruel, who took the corpses from their resting places and put them to better use as pieces. He created a man who wasn’t a man and set him loose on a town that was really a mindless mob. Looking back, Becca sees how telling it me be that it was this book that made her want to learn more about science.

She collects books. Bits and pieces of them, anyway, in a blue corduroy bag. The paper is heavy, and her mother complains of the swishing noise the pages make, but Becca can be quiet. Becca can be strong. She carries the weight admirably, and her collection only grows.

Looking forward, she sees the mindless mob that she helped create, and the power burns like heady sulfur in her chest. She could do so much. (She has already done too much.)

She loves the color red. It’s the color of blood, of course, but also of flowers and fabric and the iron oxide she cultivates in her bedroom, the brilliant fiery acid that eats away at her bars and bits of metal like a brushfire and a pile of leaves. She likes acid, too, sulfuric and hydrofluoric and citric.

Becca finds, one cold day in a cardboard shelter, that she likes fire, too. It’s bright, and it’s powerful, and it devours everything in it’s path. (It’s only when she hears the screaming of her mother inside that she remembers that in order to control a beast one must ride on it’s back, not stand in it’s way.)

She comes to Vega an orphan. This was before the v-system was quite established, and so with her collection of books and a pretty smile she climbs the ranks until she has a House and a Banner and a Name. Just her- the House of Thorn sits precariously atop a little redheaded girl, the other Councilmembers snicker. But Becca can be strong. (She carries the weight.)

General Riesen is only twenty years older than her, and they get along quite well. Soon enough they’re friends, confidantes, allies. Becca uses her influence to hide his secrets, and he uses his to help her obtain scientific equipment. (They all have dirty little secrets, after all.)

Her earliest memory is of her mother screaming. Not because of an attack or an angel or anything like that. Because of her father. Becca cannot remember her mother raising her voice past that memory. Not once until the day she died, upon which time a cacophony of wails lit up from within the burning house Becca had so recklessly destroyed. After her father left, Becca sometimes thinks, her mother simply stopped expecting an answer-  fear or resignation, she’d never know.

The sad part is that Louis isn’t even the first. He’s the most innocent, perhaps, the most important, definitely the last, but not the only. Becca’s had to perfect her y-cut, after all, and there weren’t many waiting cadavers lingering in the city center, were there. (He was definitely the most interesting, that’s for sure.)

She meets Michael when she’s twenty-three and vicious, and elbow-deep in a man’s chest pumping his heart for him. Not the most romantic of meetings, certainly, but it established in Michael’s mind two very inaccurate facts about Becca Thorn: Firstly, that she was compassionate, and secondly, that she had quite impressive willpower for a human.

These facts were not inaccurate because they were fundamentally untrue, they were inaccurate because they did not fully describe the truth. In fact, depths to which Becca’s compassion reached were truly astounding. Her soul was a well of generosity and kindness, but it was encircled in a wall of stone and ice. In addition, that stone and ice was supplied by a willpower of truly divine source. (If God is on Earth, he is in the hearts and minds of those with true clarity of will.)

She feels her heart racing as she dies, feels her veins frantically attempting to pump oxygen into her brain, to flush her strangled mind with blood and thought, but instead the world grows paler and darker until all color is fading and all noise has ceased, and she can hear the flapping of wings in the back of her mind, like a call to the Heavens from Hell itself.

Michael never showed her his wings. Perhaps that was why they fascinated her so much, the unseen veneers of light and keratin and holy spirit. What are angels made of, really? She used to ask herself, thorium, titanium, chlorophyll, sulfuric acid? How do you quantify something that doesn’t exist? How do you bring forth love in a being of steel and midnight? (How do you ask God a question when he was born without ears and you were born without hands?)

That was the other thing. Louis never cried. He asked politely (so politely) if he could please just go home, if after this could he go to sleep? And Becca would just reply, no, I’m sorry, I need to do this. And he’d nod, as though he understood. (As though he’d been waiting twenty-five years for this to happen.)

Becca hopes Claire gets along well, she really does. Claire isn’t angry like Becca, isn’t constrained by her own expectations and dreams. Science and ambition have no meaning for Claire. She has a throne in her future and men who love her and a friend who’s vicious where she isn’t and cruel where she’s kind. Claire is flowers and sunsets and soft stone where Becca is silk and knives and starlight, and iBecca’s worried for her for a while.

Except Claire is made of steel and stardust and Becca doesn’t know where the certainty comes from, when she has always had doubts herself. She can talk herself out of or into anything, but Claire seems to know. Every step she takes has a purpose, every promise she makes is kept. It’s fascinating, to Becca, that sureness. She’s never known anybody so confident. (So convinced that the right thing to do is the right thing to do.)

Becca can be a good friend, a good lover, a good politician. But she cannot be a good person. She cannot let the doubts of her heart and the convictions of her mind battle, cannot waste the time, so she kills one mercilessly and executes orders with all the certainty of the other. She consults her science and examines her angels and dies at the hands of the fire she set.

She is sympathy and science, and her sympathies must end so her science can progress. It is simple, and it’s certain, and it’s clear.

(After all, science is God’s way of saying your turn.)


End file.
